Activity on Colours

I've finally made one activity for Valerie to practice her colours. I printed a picture of a tree and 4 colours of berries. Then I cut them out and got them laminated. As usual, when Valerie came home from nanny, she saw the 'Tree of Berries' and pointed to it. She knew it's another game.

I sat Valerie down and ask her to pick the 'Red' berries. She picked the first 2 correctly, after that she couldn't wait to get her hands on the other colours. After that Ivan played the same activity with her again while I bathed and asked her to pick 'Blue' berries. Again she got the first 2 correct, and then she started picking other colours.

So Ivan and myself figured that she knew the colours but she only got the patience to pick first 2 berries correctly.

Another time, while I was doing homework with her, she picked the Orange crayon. As she was doodling, while I was colouring her Mandara diagram, she suddenly pointed and said 'Orange'. I was quite surprised. I guess she knew her colours after all.

For those who would like a copy of this activity, feel free to email me. I haven't figured out how to share this on the post yet :)

Valerie Can Build Tower

Last Saturday daddy was not around to go to class with us cause he has to work. So grandma tagged along to help out. After class, I brought Valerie to Isetan and I let her sit at the children's play area. 

Few months earlier, she didn't know what to do with the blocks despite us showing her to put them on top of each other to build a tower. In the end she ended up throwing on the floor or tasting them with her tongue. So Ivan has banned her from playing blocks for a while.

But this time, I noticed she took the block and put it on the existing square tower. And she repeated this piece by piece until the wall was about 5 levels higher. Yea!! Valerie can finally build block towers! So I told Ivan, maybe we could consider buying her a Lego set now or Duplo or something. Or maybe just the cheaper blocks made from China sold in those small toy shops. Who knows, she might like building blocks today, and won't want to have anything to do with it another day. No need to buy such expensive toys. Something I'm learning as a parent with a toddler now. Kid's interest is so short that you don't need to buy expensive branded toys.

Daddy Bonding Time

Some of you may not believe it, but Valerie has never called Ivan 'Daddy'. Well, she does know who is her daddy and she can point to daddy if you ask her. But she will never call daddy, 'Daddy'. On the contrary, she has called 'Mommy' since she was, hmmm.. I can't remember... 9-10 months??

If she's hungry, it's 'Mommy!', if her diaper is wet, it's 'Mommy!', when she wakes up and finds no one in the room, she'll cry 'Mommy!'. But never 'Daddy'. In fact sometimes when I'm not free and I get Ivan to pick her up, she will look around for mommy, if her first option is not available, well, she'll let daddy carry. Better than none, I guess.

Recently, I realise something. Ivan has never really bonded with Valerie. Sure, he has always been the 'Papa Maid' around the house. He wakes up early to boil porridge, run around to get the milk bottles ready, set up the bath tub, make sure the house is protected, if not, double protected  (I'm not exaggerating!) from mosquitos and all. But he never really has much hands-on moments with the baby. The only exception is when I need to get chores done, he has no choice but to carry her. He will then bring her downstairs, sit her on a sofa and turn on 'Little Einsteins' for her. That's his version of daddy bonding time.

So last week, I enforced a new rule. Daddy has to read her at least 2 books at night before she goes to sleep. Heck, I even bought a 'My Daddy is Fun' book to emphasise the word 'Daddy'. As expected, Ivan whined and showed me the bored look, but I couldn't care. I told him, he has to take up some of the actual parenting work :P

Relunctantly, he read. I have to say daddy did a pretty good job, in fact, he told the story a little differently than how I'd normally read it, but interesting enough to capture Valerie's attention. So after finishing 2 books, daddy couldn't escape. Valerie gave him more books to read. Haha... Less computer games time for daddy now.. Yeah!!

I'm not sure if it's coincidence or what, but after 2 nights of daddy's story telling, Valerie started calling him 'Daddy!'. In fact, nanny told me, Valerie actually said 'Daddy' at her place too. This has never happen in history. Before that, when nanny say 'Daddy arr'... Valerie will answer 'Mommy!!'.

Over the next few days, Valerie will actually look for daddy and tell me 'Daddy', pointing to the door. She wants me to carry her out of the room to play with Daddy. Isn't this great? I know deep down, Ivan must be really pleased. :)

So to all the daddies out there.... don't wait, roll up your sleeves and start bonding with your kids. They need daddy's love too, and that means sitting down and really spending time with them. Look at it this way, you may play computer games until your hair turns gray, but kids? Once they are out of the door, they won't be looking for you anymore. So treasure the time now, when all they want is you.

But that doesn't mean you should stop being the Papa Maid around the house, ok??

Photo Memory Training

Thanks to one mommy whom I met online, she told me about this shop called 'Kids Station' at Endah Parade which sells right brain training material. So I went to take a look during lunch time with my colleagues. The shop sells a lot of brain training activities which are very interesting. What caught my eye was the Eye Training Set which comprises of 4 categories: Photo Memory, Colour Differentiation, Space Memory and Instant Memory.

The lady in charge was very pleasant and even sat us down to explain how the activities are played. So in the end, I bought the set at RM78. She told me these sets are made and sold by Shichida mommies themselves. Although I know the materials can easily be self-made but since I need a sampling so I just bought one set to try it out first.

When I took out the set at night, Valerie quickly walked towards me as if she knew that's something new for her to play. As recommended, we should start with 2 objects and show to your child about a few seconds. Then get your child to put the objects on the card based on what he/she can remember.

For very young kids, we are told to put the velcro sticker on the spots so to help them to know where to put the objects. Valerie was very excited and she loved all the activities played, but she has no patience to wait for the few seconds. I'm not even sure she knows she's supposed to stick it according to what she sees. She just couldn't wait to get her hands on the colourful objects and stick it on the card.

After 2 sessions, I've decided to increase it to 4 objects instead since it's pretty boring with only 2. Afterall, it's a 50-50 chance of getting it right. But I have to admit, I didn't follow through to putting the objects at different position every time we played it. I put them at the same spots instead to let her know it's supposed to the same as the one on my card. I know this is not much of photo training then :P

So after about 5 sessions, I managed to catch her on video doing the Photo Memory activity. Pretty impressive... eh?? Too bad I recorded using the wrong angle, sigh..


There are many more interesting stuff sold there like a set of 50 Mandaras for you to practice with your kid, Tangrams and Linked Memory. The mandara set looks interesting, maybe I'll get that when Valerie is old enough to understand the activity. I didn't get to see the Linked Memory set because they were all sold out. There are also memory boards games, flash cards and many more. Do check out their website to view their catalogues http://www.kids.net.my/

Tantrum at Shopping Mall

These days, I feel Valerie has started to enjoy pretend play. Give her any soft toy and she will hold one in each hand and make them kiss or take rides together. Her favourite is feeding the 'bunny' or the 'bear' her milk bottle. At night, in order to get her to drink water, I first have to offer to Mr. Bear, then to her and then both Mr. Bear and herself will take turns drinking water.

Last Sunday, while we were waiting for daddy and grandma to go to the toilet, Valerie saw this 'car' parked near where we stood. Since the person-in-charge didn't mind, I let Valerie climbed in. This is the first time she ever got into her own version of a car.

She was busy turning the steering wheel while opening and closing the door, pretending she's really driving. I could see she thoroughly enjoyed it.

About 10-15 mins later, when grandma and daddy were back, I told Valerie we needed to go home. She shook her head and continued to turn her wheels. When I open the door, she closed it back. Then I tried talking to her but she just ignored me.

Grandma then told me to hide at one corner to see if she would be scared and looked for us. After a while she did stop and turn around to look for us. When she couldn't see us, she continue playing!! She has so much confidence that mommy wouldn't abandoned her!

In the end, I just opened the car door and forcefully took her out of the car. She was wailing loudly from the shopping mall, to the carpark and into the car. After taking her milk, she remembered again and started to whine. Gosh... looks like she's getting more persistent about the things she wants these days. Another sign of Terrible Two coming up??

Brillkids Little Reader

I've started Valerie on Little Reader (LR) and Little Maths (LM) about two months ago. How I got to know about them was through a search for Shichida maths files. A mommy has created the maths files and uploaded it in LM format. So I downloaded the trial version to have a look and tried in on Valerie. And she absolutely loves it!!! If you want to find out more, check out their website http://www.brillkids.com/ . They give a 14 days trial.

When I showed Valerie the first lesson, she immediately took on the actions words on the screen, following each action word (eg. point, wave). When the lesson has ended, she would cry for more. Sometimes she even grabbed my mouse to try to get the lesson to start again.

The LR lesson has 3 parts initially: Word Flash, MultiSensory and Picture Flash. In later stages, it now includes a Phonics flash. The Multisensory shows the word, and then the picture with a one line narration and lastly a short video clip of the object. I find this is really good to teach the meaning of an action word because a video clip tells it all. As for lesson on animals, you can also hear the sound of the animal makes. So this is exactly what I'm looking for.

Apart from that, I also like the functionality of the program where you can create your own flash cards and there is a setting to choose whether you want to flash only the words or the pictures or both! And you can even choose if you want the words to be shown first or the picture. There is also a setting to shuffle the words/pictures randomly. This is sooooo much easier than using the powerpoint.

LR also has a large library for you to download from and these files are created by mommies / daddies themselves. So it's pretty good, save myself a lot of time as most of the topics (Music, Arts, Encyclopaedia Knowledge) that I want to show Valerie were already created. All I need to do is download and import them into the LR :) They also have files in powerpoint, feel free to take a look.

As for LM, well, Valerie followed through initially but after a while she found looking at dots quite boring. Now, she'll whine when I show her LM but I still continue to show here anyway :P

I'm not sure if this is actually teaching Valerie to read or not as she's too young to show it. But one thing for sure, she enjoys LR and that's all it matters. And even if she isn't reading yet, my thought is, at least she's building up her vocab. Upon hearing a word, she know which object it is or which body part to point to or what action word to show me. At night after she has washed up, she knows it's LR time. She would grab my mouse and hand it over to me. And then try to carry my laptop to bed. Aiyooo.. so small girl but want to carry such a heavy thing. I have to go and help her of course...

Just a few days back, she gave me a surprise. During the words flash, she suddenly said 'Eye', and then 'Nose' correctly even before the word is being pronounced. I couldn't believe it! Does this show my baby can read? Even if it's just two words, I'm really elated. But it only happens once, hopefully more to come in the future :)

Here is a video clip of her watching LR, the first one is on Parts of the Body...


This one is on Action Words...

Heguru Assessment

After attending Heguru for three months, Valerie was scheduled for an assessment last week. It was not an academic assessment as I was expecting. It was more like a one-to-one session with the sensei. Sensei commented on her change of behaviour in class. How she's paying attention more and have stopped running around. Yeah, I agreed she has improved a lot. Ivan and myself kept talking to her and telling her to sit down in class and don't run around. We also told her not to touch the abacus. And last week, she walked towards the abacus, but later she turned and looked at me. I signalled her to come back and she did! So although her classmates were happily playing the abacus, she actually listened and sat down.

There are a few new things that sensei recommend we could practice with her at home.
1. Mandara - although Valerie is still small, we could get her to colour the Mandara worksheet in full colour. And then show it to her throughout the week before the next class. So in a way to train her to remember the diagram. Then we could draw it back in class.

2. Peg Memory - Heguru usually provides the peg memory sheet whenever we start a new set. We're asked to sing the peg memory song to Valerie at home to help her to remember. This just gave me an idea. I'm going to scan and print another set, laminate and cut it out. And let Valerie match the picture to the number (since she loves doing that in class anyway).

3. Linked Memory - We could get the LM set and create stories to link 10 picture cards. Then cover them with numbered blank cards. Then flip the blank card to show the picture card underneath as we repeat the story (this is practiced in Heguru). I'm starting out with 6 cards for now and repeat the same 6 cards (instead of creating different set every time) and will slowly add 1 more card. I'm merging both Heguru and Shichida method here, not sure if this is right :P 

But one thing I learned from another mommy's blog is, the correct way to do LM is by creating a line that links object A to object B and then another line to link object B to object C. Instead of one sentence that links object A to B and C. And I find this to be true. I can remember better using the earlier method. After doing this twice this week, I noticed Valerie really sat down to look at the 6 cards I showed.

4. Homework - I've never started on homework simply because I thought it's silly to get a toddler to do homework when she doesn't know what's going on. But we're told that kids will learn very fast on the concept of homework and passing up of homework. That the older kids in the other class look forward to doing homework every week and even cried if they forgot to bring it back to class. So I've started this on Valerie this week. Let's see how it goes.